Memory awake
by Waterfowl
Summary: Newly resouled Sam takes off with a bang, leaving Dean to nurse his devastation. Set right after the closing events in 6.11 'Appointment in Samarra'. AU-ish with regard to how season 6 is about to proceed, starting with ep. 6.12. Featuring Bobby.


**A/N: A little hiatus speculation installment****, by way of a ficlet. Based on the presumption, Sam might very well turn out utterly unthrilled and unplacated by the forced resoulment. **

**Set right after the closing events in 6.11 'Appointment in Samarra'. Newly resouled Sam takes off with a bang, leaving Dean to nurse his devastation. AU-ish, apparently, with regard to how season 6 is about to proceed, starting with ep. 6.12.**

**Disclaimer: None of the characters, plot-points, inherent to the show, belong to me. **

**Memory awake***

Bobby doesn't deserve the silent treatment. Not after everything he's had to go through. Dean is certain of that much. Still there are just no words to spell the void inside. No sounds he can think of to reassemble the echo of Sam's bitter words. _If Dean enjoyed himself now that his brother's capacity to suffer full-scale was reinstated... If Dean was about to have a field day whence Sam would be reduced to a drooling mess, sooner or later... If Dean was glad to render his pathetic existence useful yet another time..._ Sam's gaze blazed with rage and something so close to hatred, it singed to behold. So Dean didn't, focusing the studiously leveled stare on the crude metal floor, instead. Dean didn't look up all the while Sam's boots stomped closer, the towering frame brushing past him in the narrow hatchway of Bobby's panic room. Dean didn't look up to the heavy thud of the front door, flung shut as Sam opted to walk out of his life. Again. Seventh time is a charm, they say. Dean is yet to utter anything since.

Bobby catches him burning the pictures the next day. Seated cross-legged in front of the fire-place, Dean quietly feeds what few snapshots he's still kept, stashed securely into Impala's glove compartment, to the eager, hungry flames. One by one. Admires, how the minute glossy images of Mom and Dad, and baby Sammy, Sam and his own self, as kids, Dad and Adam, Lisa and Ben get devoured into crispy, twisted ash. The paper doesn't yield willingly nor painlessly. Fights the inferno every step of the way. Much like his own battered memory. Bobby shoves him aside, reaches for the rake to try and salvage the churned scraps. In a matter of seconds Dean's soaked in a gruff array of indignant 'idjits'. Bobby is visibly worried, like he probably should be, that Dean is losing it. Except Bobby's wrong. Dean's already lost. All of it. All of them. Everybody he's ever loved.

Dean knows it's not fair, too. Not quite. For when all's said and done there's still Bobby. And there's still Cas. But Dean looks Bobby in the anxious eye and sees the year of a living, breathing Hell he was arranged to endure, however well-intended. He can't help it. Dean looks around and Cas is not there, off waging a one-angel war. Dean can't help it either.

That's when Bobby finally takes away Dean's gun. And the knives. And locks up the house supply of sleeping pills. Apart from insisting, in so many heartfelt syllables, Dean spent some quality time in the panic room. Dean doesn't protest. That would be too much effort, while he's drained to the point he can barely remember to move one foot in front of the other. Muscle memory is definitely overrated.

Besides, there's no reason for concern, on Bobby's part. Cas confirmed once, that suicide was indeed a misdemeanor, charged with the trip downstairs. And Dean is not going back there just yet. Not for considering himself undeserving. Far from it. But for being sure, Hell offers anything but oblivion. Dean, of all people, knows firsthand how much awareness Hell can issue. How much more still it's capable to evoke, stripping layers of blissful ignorance down to the raw nerve. At least for now, pretending to be dead alive, Dean can scramble for the comforting shrouds of delusion. The refuge recollections of fireworks, and peanut-butter sandwiches, of a cheerful Sammy and a caring Mom. A precious make believe of having been loved by someone. Once upon a time.

* * *

*Remorse—is Memory—awake—

Her Parties all astir—

A Presence of Departed Acts—

At window—and at Door—

Its Past—set down before the Soul

And lighted with a Match—

Perusal—to facilitate—

And help Belief to stretch—

Remorse is cureless—the Disease

Not even God—can heal—

For 'tis His institution—and

The Adequate of Hell—

(by Emily Dickinson)


End file.
